


Worse Than The Disease

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Forced Injections, Gen, Hunt Gone Wrong, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Sam Carries Dean, Sick Dean Winchester, Upset Sam Winchester, forced medical treatment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 07:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It was supposed to be a distraction, a way to keep their minds off Cas.They’re distracted, now, all right.And if Sam wants to save his brother, he’s going to have to do some things Dean is not going to like.





	Worse Than The Disease

“Okay, okay, hang on,” Sam said. 

Dean was hanging off him, trying to walk but barely managing to stumble over his own feet. He already felt raging hot against Sam’s side and, in the end, Sam just hoisted Dean up into his arms, and carried him the rest of the way to the infirmary.

If ever they needed Cas, it was now, and Sam shoved down the flare of distress at knowing just how out of their reach the angel was.

A prisoner of Lucifer, the devil riding him as he split his time between running Hell and looking for a way to kill Amara.

So much, Sam thought as he set Dean down on one of the tables, drawing a pained groan, for his brother’s desire to get out of the bunker on a hunt to distract him from being unable to rescue Cas.

This would distract him, all right.

He pressed his hand against Dean’s forehead, and winced at the sharp heat he felt there.

Dean was already down to his tee, the plaid overshirt torn up to reveal the bite wound, and then folded hastily into a pad to stop the bleeding until Sam could get his brother back to their car.

He undid the dressing he’d replaced it with, and felt his stomach lurch at how angry and infected the wound looked.

Only four hours ago Dean had been bitten, and his arm already looked swollen to twice the circumference of before.

“Guess it’s past me chasing down some Tylenol with whiskey, huh.”

His eyes were red, and Sam didn’t grudge him it; he hurt just looking at his brother, and the hell of it was that they both knew it would get worse.

“We’re gonna have to do it,” Sam said.

Dean tried to get up, but the movement jarred him, and he slowly, stiffly, lowered himself back down. “Fuck,” he panted.

“Dean.”

Dean turned a desperate, fevered look on him. “You sure? Not like they were perfect, or anything. Not like they didn’t make mistakes.”

Sam picked up the book he’d pulled from the archives before they left, the one he’d used to check the infirmary had everything they needed just in case.

Just as well, though he hated the feeling that by doing so he’d somehow tempted fate and brought this whole mess into being.

“The patient recovered,” he said. “Dean, we can’t wait and there’s no other way. Not if you want to keep your arm.”

_Not if you want to survive this_.

He stood there, affording Dean the time to come around, to agree, but still counting down the seconds in his head since they were against the clock here.

And knowing that if Dean balked, if he made the wrong decision, he was ready to hold Dean down and do it anyway.

But it didn’t come to that. Dean looked a little sick at the thought of what was coming, but he nodded, and Sam grabbed the trolley and wheeled it over.

Maybe he’d just had a feeling, but he was glad now he’d taken time to make up the antidote to Black Paw venom before they went.

The problem was how it had to be delivered.

Dean was trying to lift up his tee shirt, but he was already weak and shaking, the pain stealing his strength, and Sam gently pressed him back onto the bed.

“I got it, Dean,” he said. He took the edge of the tee shirt, and hesitated. Dean wouldn’t be able to hold it up, and moving him enough to take it off would just hurt his brother all the more.

He murmured an apology and tore the tee shirt right up the middle.

It said it all that, even though Sam knew it was one of his favourites, Dean offered no complaint.

There were some iodine wipes on the trolley; Sam pulled on some gloves and quickly opened a wipe and daubed it over Dean’s stomach.

His brother groaned, and shivered, but then he got a look about him that Sam had seen often enough.

Usually either after Dean woke up with a hangover, or was unlucky enough to catch the stomach flu, but it had Sam looking for the trash can.

Dean grabbed his arm, shook his head. “No,” he panted. “I got it, just…”

Sam nodded, understanding Dean without him actually having to say it. _Don’t drag it out_.

He picked up the first syringe, marked two finger widths up from Dean’s belly button, and inserted the needle.

Dean drew in a sharp breath, jostling himself, and Sam stopped until Dean settled, before pushing through until he knew he was in deep enough.

He pressed the plunger and the yellow liquid slowly disappeared from the syringe into Dean.

Sam quickly removed the syringe and set it aside. They both knew what came next, and Dean barely had time to prepare himself before his body went taut as if someone had run an electric current through his body.

Sam stood helplessly by; there was nothing to be done until the initial effects of the antidote wore off. 

But standing there, watching Dean suffer, unable to help, and knowing it was a direct result of something he’d done, made him want to scream.

And then Dean’s body collapsed out of the fit, and slumped limply back onto the table.

“Fuck,” he wheezed. “Fuck, fuck, Sam, please, no more.”

Sam glanced guiltily back at the table. There were six more shots to be taken, all of them one after the other. And then the same again in a week, and the last dose, another six, a fortnight after that.

It wasn’t a form of treatment administration even used these days, in mainstream medicine, Sam knew; the closest he’d found (he’d shared Dean’s concerns that the Letters had been off base on this one, and did what research he could) was the old method of vaccinating against rabies.

But if Dean wasn’t treated, he’d suffer much the same as someone infected with that disease, and Sam would lose him in the end.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and picked up the next syringe.

Dean was just too weak to do anything about it.

++

Dean slept, after. 

Sam carried him to his room, because he deserved to be comfortable as possible, and wake up in surroundings more pleasant than the infirmary.

He pulled up a chair, and sat down to keep watch.

All the information in the medical text told Sam that Dean would be fine, now. The initial dose would take care of the infection; the next two were precautions only, to ensure no resurgence, but still as necessary.

Sam wasn’t too worried about those; they wouldn’t be half as severe, and Dean, having undergone what was surely the worst part of the treatment, wouldn’t protest half as much, even though the procedure for administering the drug was the same.

But if it came to it, and he had to go ahead and do it anyway, he knew that he would.

Given a choice between forcing Dean to endure something admittedly unpleasant and painful and letting Dean get sicker, and suffer horribly until he died… 

Well, there was no choice.

He leaned forward, and rested his hand on Dean’s forehead. He was much closer now, and when he checked the wound it seemed less inflamed than before.

But Dean’s stomach…. Each injection site looked like a nasty bruise, and Sam was sure when his brother woke up, that he’d feel each mark made.

Made by him.

Most of them after Dean had begged him to stop.

Sam rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the burn, and willing the tears to stay back. The last thing he needed was Dean to wake up and see him upset, because Dean would be up and out of that bed to see what was wrong.

And Sam knew what Dean would say if he found out it was because Sam had hurt him.

Huh, _say_. Dean would have kicked his ass for being so damn upset over saving his life.

And he had, he knew that. And something else he knew was that nothing worthwhile in their lives had ever come without cost.

It didn’t mean the price was ever easy to pay.


End file.
